Author: Gavin Andresen 2011-09-05 20:41:24
Published on: 2011-09-05T20:41:24+00:00
The Bitcoin project has made a change to its code that skips ECDSA signature verification during the initial blockchain download. This allows for faster downloads of the blockchain, which includes all blocks up to 120 blocks before the last blockchain lock-in point. The reasoning behind this change is that if an attacker tries to feed a client bad transactions during the initial download, they will be rejected at the first blockchain lock-in due to changes in the merkle tree. However, transactions are still checked for orphan blocks and mined blocks during the download process. The proposed change can be reviewed on Github, and feedback is appreciated.
Updated on: 2023-06-04T18:55:34.604467+00:00